


Blood On Our Hands

by annaslytherin



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellarke, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 11:44:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3207944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annaslytherin/pseuds/annaslytherin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke struggles to deal with the death she caused and Bellamy does his best to help her.<br/>"'Cause you're a sky, cause you're a sky full of stars<br/>I want to die in your arms, arms<br/>'Cause you get lighter the more it gets dark<br/>I'm going to give you my heart"<br/>-Sky Full of Stars, Coldplay</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood On Our Hands

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing Bellarke. I really hope I captured the characters well enough. They are without a doubt my OTP. I also wanted to post this before the return on Season 2 (and I made it--barely).  
> Spoilers for 2x08.

Bellamy knew something was wrong with Clarke. He knew that for days she’d been busying herself with medical work and resolving camp disputes so that she didn’t have to think about what she’d done. To everyone it may have looked as if she’d moved on, or at least was coping with what she’d done, but Bellamy knew better. He could tell that inside she was breaking into a million pieces and he didn’t know what to do about it. As Abby and Kane talked about the newfound peace between the Grounders and the Arkers he knew that Clarke didn’t hear them talk about food supplies or shelter or authority or any of that. He knew that with every mention of the Grounders Clarke only thought of one thing: Finn.

The boy she loved. 

The boy she killed. 

She was fighting back tears in order to be strong and stoic for the good of her people. And while Bellamy admired that, he still didn’t like to see it happen. He knew she couldn’t hold it in forever. He knew what it felt like to feel so disgusted with yourself that you could barely breath. He knew how to put on the appearance that all was well when in reality every day you wake up and wish that you hadn’t. He also knew what happened when your outside shell finally broke and the sadness you’d been holding back consumed you completely. And he knew that it had to happen to Clarke eventually. 

When the meeting ended, Abby and Kane gathered their papers and continued to talk quietly amongst themselves. Bellamy, still watching Clarke, saw when she abruptly pushed herself from the table and left the room in a hurry. Bellamy was on his feet in a flash. He couldn’t let the princess go off on her own when she felt as shitty as she did.

Camp Jaha was quiet at this time of night. Through the sound of crickets buzzing and the hum of the electric fence you could hear only the occasional muffled voice of people saying goodnight in their tents. Grounder and Ark guards stood side by side on the edge of camp which was a sight Bellamy was still getting used to. A Grounder was trying to show an Ark guard how to properly throw a spear while another Grounder was being taught the basics on how to hold a gun. It was still weird seeing them work together, even though it was what the goal had been for a long time now. Bellamy winced as he realized that Finn had wanted it that way from the very beginning.

Clarke didn’t stop at her tent or the medic station, which were the two places Bellamy assumed she would go. Instead, she turned a corner around a large piece of the Ark that had broken off the main frame and towards the part of Camp that had been left empty since the landing. Suddenly, Bellamy knew exactly where she was going and without hesitation he picked up his pace. He rounded the same corner and just managed to see a trace of her blonde head in the shadows of the flickering fire light as she bent down at the exact spot Bellamy knew she would be. A day or so ago they’d found a break in the fence where the electricity was out. Clarke had probably figured out a way to manipulate the wires or dig a hole or something so that she could get out of camp. But Bellamy couldn’t let her.

He stopped behind her, breathless, and grabbed her wrist from where it was perched on a giant piece of scrap metal that had probably once been a an exterior piece of the Ark. Her head whipped around to face him and his heart nearly broke when he saw her swollen red eyes. Clarke pulled her hand out from under Bellamy’s and used the back of it to wipe at her eyes. She pushed herself off the ground and turned to face him. “Bellamy,” she said, “what are you doing here?”

“I’m stopping you from doing something stupid, princess,” he said matter of factly.

Clarke shook her head. “I’m not stupid,” she said defiantly, “I am just going for a walk. That’s all.”

“I know you aren’t stupid. You’re far from it. But going on a walk, out there,” he gestured towards the wild expanse of woods, “is stupid.”

She brought her gaze to the ground and shifted her feet. “Bellamy, please, I just need time alone. I need to think.”

“So do it at Camp. In your tent. By the campfire. Or here, by all this abandoned junk. Do it wherever, as long as you’re safe. I--we--need you safe”

She glanced up at Bellamy and he saw that a few tears dotted her cheeks. She took a shaky breath and said, “I’m just as safe out there as I am here. We don’t have to worry about the Grounders anymore and--” she held up a hand to shut Bellamy up, “before you mention the Mountain Men the odds of them being out there at exactly this moment are slim to none.”

“Right,” said Bellamy, “because humans are the only thing we have to worry about? What about deadly bugs? Or the poisonous fog? Or animals? Need I remind you that one of the first real times that we did anything together I saved you from a trap full of spikes! And then shortly after saving you from the spike filled trap; giant, man eating cats tried to kill us?” Bellamy ran a hand through his unruly mess of hair as he waited for Clarke to respond. If she left the odds of her coming back weren’t bad, but they weren’t too good either. Clarke could take care of herself, but not against everything and not in the state she was in.

Clarke twisted a finger through her own hair for a moment before muttering quietly, “I think about that day a lot, actually. Especially lately.”

“Yeah?” asked Bellamy. He sat down on the large piece of metal and motioned for Clarke to do the same. She did, which Bellamy hoped meant that she’d dropped the crazy idea of going on a moonlit stroll.

“Yeah.” She rubbed her hands together and was silent for a moment. “I think a lot about how you considered dropping me.”

Bellamy opened his mouth slightly, taken aback by this declaration. Clarke’s hair hung over her eyes so he couldn’t get a good read of her face. He wished he could so he could see how disgusted with him she was. He also wished he could defend himself. He wished he could say that the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind and that the whole time he intended on being a hero and saving her. But that wasn’t true. He had thought about dropping her aristocratic, elitist ass into those rusted metal contraptions. Back then, he thought that if he let go of her hand than he would’ve been done with the annoying princess forever. But he didn’t, and he silently thanked God that he hadn’t. Honestly, where would he be now without Clarke?

“You don’t have to defend yourself,” whispered Clarke. “I understand what you were thinking back then.”

Bellamy swallowed. “I--I wasn’t going to defend myself.” There. He admitted how horrible he was.

Clarke gave an almost imperceptible nod and Bellamy felt of wave of sadness. She thought that he was horrible too. But he’d changed right? He hoped so. He thought he had. He thought that Clarke had helped him become someone better, or at least helped him realize who he was all along.  
Just then she gave a rather loud snivel, wiped her eyes, and glanced up at Bellamy. “I--I’ve been wondering something.”

“Yeah?”

“If something like that happened again. . .would you still consider dropping me?”

Something seemed to squeeze in Bellamy’s chest at the mere suggestion of dropping Clarke. He imagined her blonde hair in a halo around her face as a circle of blood turned everything red. He imagined her eyes void of life staring up at a sky full of stars that would no longer be shining to him. Not with Clarke gone. No. He’d never drop his princess. Not after everything they’d been through. “No,” he said quietly, “of course not. I’d hold onto you with everything I’ve got.”

A shaky breath wracked her body. “Lately, I’ve--I’ve been thinking that it’d be better if I was impaled by spikes. I mean. . .I’ve caused so much death. So much damage. I--I killed him.” Her voice broke and she looked away from Bellamy before her body shuddered with a sob that she’d obviously been holding back.

“Clarke,” he said. He reached over and tilted her chin up so that she was looking at him. He wiped away a tear and slid a stray piece of hair behind her ear. She shook with another sob and leaned into his hand. Bellamy stayed still for a moment but then removed his hand from her cheek and gently pulled her closer so that she could rest her head on his shoulder. “Listen. You’ve done so good, Clarke. You’ve told me so many times that I am a good person and I’ve never really said anything back to you. I guess I thought you knew how extraordinary you are.”

“I’m not extraordinary.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Bellamy, I killed Finn! I killed him.” 

“And that’s something that made me fully realize how extraordinary you are. We’ve all done things since we’ve touched the ground. We’ve all made choices that resulted in death. We’ve all got blood on our hands.Three hundred people on the Ark died because I was selfish and horrible, and one man died because he had to in order to save our people. You killing Finn saved him from pain and torture. It was merciful.”

Clarke’s voice shook and she muttered, “Blood on our hands.”

“What?”

“You said that we’ve all got blood on our hands. But you don’t understand!” she paused as she tried to steady her voice, “My hands were covered in his blood. His blood--it --it poured out onto my hands. I had his literal blood on my hands.” She wrung them together in her lap. “And no matter how many times I wash them I can still feel it. It won’t go away.”

Bellamy grabbed both her hands and held them in his own. Surprisingly, they weren’t soft and delicate like Bellamy thought they would be. A stupid assumption, he realized, since Clarke wasn’t soft and delicate. Her hands were calloused and scarred just like his own. 

“His death was not your fault.”

“What are you talking about? I murdered him! I put the knife in his abdomen. I calculated it too,” she continued quietly, like it was a secret that she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, “so I knew just where the knife needed to go so that he would die as quickly as possible.”

Bellamy was quiet as he considered how to reply. “Yes, you put the knife in him,” he said gently, “but his death was his choice. He chose to kill eighteen people. He chose to give himself to the Grounders.”

Clarke shook her head. “But he did those things because of me.”

“Maybe, Clarke, but he did those things. Not you. Not anyone. It was him. He made those choices and they were his--no one elses. You can’t blame yourself for something that he did. You just can’t.” He squeezed her hands gently in hopes that maybe that would somehow help. She always knew how to say that right thing when Bellamy felt upset and like a sick sort of monster. And although Bellamy could give inspirational speeches to the remaining 100 easy enough, something about Clarke made him tongue tied. He never felt like he gave their conversations justice. He could never, he realized, live up to the greatness that was Clarke Griffin. 

Clarke turned slightly so her face was buried into his shoulder. For a while she continued to shake with sobs and Bellamy felt helpless as he sat there doing nothing. She didn’t ask him to do anything, but he still felt like he should. He figured sometimes people just need a shoulder to cry on--literally. Eventually she quieted down to just snivels and tears. She sat up straight and took her hands out from his and used the back of her sleeve to wipe away her tears. But now backs of her sleeves were dotted with splotches of tear soaked fabric.

“Thanks,” she said, her voice scratchy and hoarse from crying.

“I didn’t think I’d helped much.”

“No, you helped a lot. It’s just hard, you know.”

Bellamy thought of Atom and Roma and Wells and tiny Charlotte. He remembered the time he’d hallucinated and seen the three hundred corpses that died because of his stupidity. He thought of Jasper and Monty and Miller and the rest of the forty seven who may or may not be alive. He thought of Finn and how much he’d changed from the first day on the ground. And how Finn, the real Finn, had died long before Clarke put a knife in his body.  
“Yeah,” he said, his voice now hoarse too, “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments/kudos are really appreciated. This is my first time posting here so I love getting feedback. Check out my tumblr (elizahtaylor) and feel free to message me there. :)


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